Impressions from Stockholm

By WGM Alina l'Ami

10-9-8…3-2-1 – Gott Nytt Ar!!! – as the Swedish would say at the beginning of a new year, in the universal hope to get it right this time. Probably some of the very ambitious and passionate resolutions have already been forgotten and the old habits are back in town. Nevertheless, ten days ago, at 24 o’clock, an invisible bridge was connecting us all. As for the undersigned: new year, same goal. But this time, I promised myself I’ll start the changes right from the very moment when the good ideas will sprout inside of my head.

Said and done: like a real chess player I was also ‘partying’ in the night of January 1st by checking some Nimzo. That’s partly because of the love I have for the game, but the main triggering force was the scheduled round five on the same day in the Rilton Cup, held in Stockholm between 27th December 2011 – 6th January 2012.

Starting from Jan. 1st GM Ulf Andersson was on duty, commenting the games for the grateful public

One could also watch the live games on this giant screen, if coming closer to the boards was too difficult. And believe me, sometimes it really was, especially in time trouble.

Before you start raising your eyebrows, questioning the pleasure of playing chess on a day when any ‘normal’ person is resting after a memorable party, you should intuitively know that for the rare species of chess players, there is no better entertainment than a game of chess –- preferably a won one. What if it’s a big zero we are talking about?! You shouldn’t worry too much if it happens in Stockholm, in the beautiful event held every year around the same dates.

Monika Socko playing against her husband Bartosz – at least the point will remain in the family

Dragan Solak against Tejas Bakre


Grzegorz Gajewski against Axel Smith

The city, the hotel, the tournament hall, the organizers efforts, they all come together to create a unique and special chess atmosphere. And personally, it worked well for me. If the start was a bit shaky, after a series of 1-0-1-0-1-0-1 (this looks more like tic-tac-toe than chess results), in round eight I stopped the negative sequence by drawing my game and winning the last round. Thanks to this finish, I am back to Holland with a third IM norm in my pocket, which also contributes to the positive vibes I have for the tournament. Simply put, it is a wonderful event – no wonder it reached its 41st edition, with more than 200 players participating in the three different rating groups: Rilton Cup, Rilton Elo and Rilton Open.

The children of the GMs also enjoyed the tournament: Szymon and Weronika Socko, Anna Cramling Bellon

The Rilton Cup is the main tournament, open for players with a higher, national or international, rating than 2200, so you can imagine it was not a piece of cake. Despite the tough lineup, Aleksandr Shimanov from Russia won the tournament, unshared, with 7.5 out of 9!

Final standings (after nine rounds)

The winner, with 7.5/9 points: Russian GM Aleksandr Shimanov

But Shimanov's victory was not as smooth and easy as some might imagine. On the contrary, to the public’s delight, tension and drama were part of the whole picture. There was the critical round six, when Aleksandr was playing with black on board one against… Erwin l’Ami, my husband. I was happily watching the game online up to the point when I almost fell from my chair: from a completely winning position, after a long and beautiful game, in the sixth hour of playing – there came the blunder: Erwin missed the mating threat devilishly set by his opponent and went into losing the game.

Not a happy moment for our family, but tiredness is and will always be a part of the game, not to mention the winner’s luck, which everybody needs it to finish in first position. Of course, most important of all, Aleksandr showed his class in the upcoming games, and convincingly won the competition.

We also had the pleasure to listen Aleksandr's hidden talent: singing! The end of the closing ceremony took an informal character and we could all enjoy a beautiful song, sang by none other than the winner himself, during the previous edition of the same Rilton Cup! It was a lovely moment and Aleksandr has nothing to be embarrassed of.

Stockholm is a fantastic place to explore and I can tell you that you’ll want to come back, in all seasons if possible. For us it was rather warm this winter, no snow and no minus 20 degrees but with the common short Nordic days, when darkness is taking over around 15 o’clock!

Settled on 14 islands (I will go even further by naming them "treasure islands"), Stockholm struck me with its spider infrastructure web, with its trains, buses, trams, bridges of all shapes and sizes, connecting the water and the land in just one single universe. I was never sure if I was going from one island to the other, I had no clue where the sea starts and where it ends, and the canals… they are real watery avenues, with the huge number of boats and ships.

And yet, Stockholm was declared the green EU capital in 2010! I perfectly understand that if I think about the repetitive words visible everywhere: environmentally friendly, eco, bio, organic, green, etc. If for many countries this is still a goal to be accomplished, in Sweden it’s a way of life, a greener one. And quite expensive if you ask me.

In short about Sweden’s capital: besides ABBA and IKEA, in Stockholm the taxi drivers open the door for you (of course, for 60 Euro who wouldn’t). People are rather tall – sometimes I felt like Gulliver in the giants’ world. Everything is clean and the streets are narrow; a lot of Arabs and Asians; everybody speaks English (which is great); the cars allow you to cross the street even if it’s red (and they don’t even use the horn!); people are direct and positive (at least from my experience); but I wanted to speak about something else, because all of that you can easily find in a guide book.

The City Hall, unfortunately closed for tours during our free day, on the December 31st

History, traditions, architecture, this is what belongs to every nation, the unique thing which makes a difference and stands the country out of the crowd. People don’t go to Stockholm for Adidas or Macdonalds – you can find that anywhere. What was I looking for, when I went out? Something new. Their architecture is amazing! I didn’t know what I should shoot, everything is so different, so original, so old, so neat – this is the Sweden's capital, the way I experienced it, during the ten days of the Rilton Cup.

The last travelling bit is to show you that chess can offer such a wide palette of emotions, related or not to the game itself. And, as I was oftenly re-assured, Stockholm can be even nicer during summer time. You can see for yourself in June, when the Stockholm Chess Federation will organize another chess event, to commemorate 100 years since the Olympic Games were held in 1912, in the same city you could see in all the above pictures.

Have a fantastic 2012 and see you in the next tournament!

Links Official tournament site All games in zipped PGN The games were broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 11 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.

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